Same As It Ever Was
by DarlingJenny
Summary: There are only three children born on the island of Hegg in the late 1970s: Katie and Angus, and Muireen. And that's exactly how everyone says it once the children reach the age of ten: Katie and Angus, and Muireen. Because it's clear to anyone with eyes that Angus is mad for Katie, and Muireen is . . . well, Muireen is also around. (Angus/Muireen)


AN: I am unapologetically, madly in love with this movie. And of all the quirky, charming, interesting characters, the one that catches my attention most is Angus (and not just because Hamish Clark was so great in Monarch of the Glen). How did he go from dating Katie, to marrying Muireen, to professing his love for Katie, to being happy with Muireen in the end?

This story attempts to fill in at least some of those holes. Be warned, it only goes up to the start of the movie, ending with the wedding, so it doesn't tie everything up with a bow; it only attempts to explain one way they could have ended up married. Some day when I am feeling ambitious I will write part two, where they finally find happiness together.

o.o.o

There are only three children born on the island of Hegg in the late 1970s: Katie and Angus, and Muireen. And that's exactly how everyone says it once the children reach the age of ten: Katie and Angus, and Muireen. Because it's clear to anyone with eyes that Angus is mad for Katie, and Muireen is . . . well, Muireen is also around.

Muireen's not stupid; she knows she's the third wheel. She hears perfectly well when the old village gossips tut sadly and say "Poor Muireen, always on the outside." But what does she care? Katie and Angus are her best friends, and even if they weren't, she can hardly avoid them. They're the only people her age that she knows.

When the children become teenagers, Angus finally makes his move, and it becomes official: Katie and Angus, and Muireen. And the old village gossips change their tutting: "Poor Muireen, she'll have to leave the island to find a man." And Muireen tells herself she doesn't care—Katie and Angus are her best friends, and even if they weren't, she can hardly avoid them, because the three of them take the ferry to Barra together every day for school—but it's less true with every day that passes.

Because now that she's attending school off the island and actually spending time with people her age, the persistent, niggling feeling that's been in the back of her mind since she was a child has grown in volume until she can't avoid it: meeting other boys has confirmed to her that she prefers Angus to all of them. So she sits on that ferry every day, watching Katie and Angus holding hands and laughing, and she has to fight down the urge to scream at him that Katie Nic Aoidh is not the girl for him.

Because Muireen and Angus? They're island through and through. The salt water that laps at the shores is in their blood; the sturdy rock of the island is their flesh and their bones. She has long been Angus's confidante, so she knows that they both want to stay on Hegg forever: Muireen to help her father with the sheep, and Angus to take over the ferry business when his father retires.

But Katie is a wanderer. Muireen's mother says it's because her father was a wanderer, and Katie gets it from him. Muireen, having spent a whole childhood of afternoons and summer days at Katie's house, isn't convinced that it's not Katie's mother who's the wanderer. But wherever she gets it, Katie hears the call of the wide world; anyone who's talked to her for more than ten seconds together could have no doubt that Katie wants off the island. But it doesn't worry Angus; "We'll work something out," he says confidently. "Love always finds a way." And Muireen listens to his serene confidence about the relationship and fights the urge to throw something.

She almost tells him, more than once, that he should focus on someone who really loves him. _I love you more than Katie ever did,_ she wants to tell him. _She won't stay on Hegg for you, no matter how much you beg. But I'd leave Hegg for you, even though it would break my heart, if you asked._

But she never does say anything, because Katie is beautiful and clever and kind, and Muireen is . . . not. She's too tall, too awkward, too brassy, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not feminine enough, just . . . not enough. How could she possibly manage to pull Angus away from Katie, who he's loved since they were children? So all she can do is smile and nod and try not to cry when Angus tells her with a calm smile, "She'll stay."

o.o.o

She doesn't stay.

At the end of the summer after she and Muireen graduate, Katie leaves Hegg to go to university, and it nearly destroys Angus. For months, no one sees him, not around town, not helping his father with the ferry, not anywhere. Even Muireen can't see him; when she goes to see how he's doing the day after Katie leaves, his mother gives her an apologetic smile and a shake of the head. But she does invite her out into the garden to sip tea and talk.

"He asked if he could come with her," Margaret sighs. "Angus offering to leave Hegg, can you believe it? That's how in love with her he is."

Muireen thinks her heart may have stopped. "But he's not leaving?"

"She said no. She wants a clean break, to meet new people." The old woman turns back to look at the house, sorrow in her eyes. "I've never seen him so upset. I hope these new people she meets plague her heart out."

Muireen doesn't say this aloud—Katie is still her friend, even if Muireen's not very happy with her right now—but secretly she agrees.

Her hopes that Katie's absence will open up an opportunity for her are quickly dashed as the weeks go by and Angus stays holed up in his parents' house, refusing to receive visitors or go into town. (She can't say she blames him; the village gossips have lots to say on the subject of Katie leaving, and they would surely swarm him with painful condolences and pointed questioning if he showed his face. Muireen knows this because, in the absence of Katie or Angus, the gossips swarm her instead.) And when he finally does start appearing, it's brief—a walk along the beach, popping down to the shop to run an errand for his mother. The few times he sees Muireen, he nods, but that's it.

The spring after Katie leaves, Angus's father has a stroke—a mild one, but still one that leaves him laid up for a while. So Angus is forced to come out of hiding and start running the ferry for his father. He's good at it, having been helping his father since he was eight years old, but it doesn't make him any more personable. He's exactly polite as he needs to be to keep the customers happy, and once that requirement has been discharged, he goes back to hiding in the bridge of his boat. After a few months, his father returns to work, but Angus continues to help him. Everyone takes this as a good sign for Angus's recovery, but it doesn't make him any friendlier.

The few times Muireen takes the ferry, he's slightly warmer to her than he is to the total strangers on the boat, but only slightly. And Muireen is left with the uncomfortable feeling that she's the only person her age on Hegg who's still in the land of the living.

o.o.o

When she is twenty-one years old, Muireen decides she's had enough. Her father has been encouraging her to go take the two-year course at the agricultural college on the Isle of Lewis; he took the same course as a young man and he thinks it will be invaluable for her work on the sheep farm. Muireen's been fighting the idea for years, afraid that if she leaves Hegg, Angus will forget all about her or find someone new. But one day she wakes up to the realization that Angus can't suddenly forget about her: how can you forget about someone you were never thinking about in the first place? And it's not like they're even friends anymore; she gave up months ago trying to call or visit, because he never answers or lets her in. She might as well stop wasting her life waiting for a man who's never going to notice her.

So she applies and is accepted, and she makes arrangements to rent a room from an old school friend in Stornoway, and she packs her bags and leaves Hegg. It's heartbreaking to see that dear old shore disappearing into the distance; the only thing that makes it bearable is knowing that she'll be back for Christmas and that she'll be home for good in two years. And then she glances at Angus, hunched miserably over the wheel, barely aware that his second-best friend from childhood is leaving Hegg, and she sighs. Another thing that makes it bearable: at least on Lewis she won't have to be reminded daily of his utter indifference to her.

Those two years are some of the best of her life. She learns so many things she didn't know that she didn't know, and she makes good friends, and she even dates some—enough to feel that she's not just a sad little girl spending her whole life pining for a boy who's never noticed her. And to drive the point home, when she goes home for holidays, she forces herself not to spend the whole time watching him drive the ferry and then wondering where he is when he's not on the ferry.

Finally, after two years, she packs her bags for her final trip back to Hegg. Things are going to be different, she promises herself as she waits for the ferry to arrive. She's not going to go back to the way she was, defined by her love for Angus, angry at Katie, lonely and sad. She is going to be confident and learn to love herself. After all, she is returning home in triumph: she'll be one of only four people on the whole island with a college education. She is going to believe she is worthy of respect from herself and others. And she's going to go back to treating Angus as a friend—a good friend, but no more.

(And as the ferry pulls up to the dock, she adds to her mental list that she's going to ignore the fact that Angus has a beard now. He's never had a beard before; Katie didn't like them. But Muireen is not going to let herself read anything into that.)

And she keeps her promise. Back on Hegg, she throws herself into her work, and her new knowledge of the most modern techniques and equipment is a boon to their little operation; her father says again and again that her education was worth every penny. She throws herself into developing a social life, too: she befriends the older women on Hegg, as there's no one else to befriend, and she joins the Hegg Book Club. She writes letters to friends, until the tiny community centre gets its first and only Internet-connected computer and she starts e-mailing her friends instead. (She used the Internet a lot at college, and no one else over the age of 18 understands or trusts it, so basically she has the computer to herself during the day, when all the island children are at school.) And every so often she takes the ferry out to Lewis and hangs out with her college friends. She is, for the first time in her life, self-sufficient and happy.

But while she learns and grows, Angus is changing too. The shell of hurt and embarrassment that he's had around himself for the past six years is thinning, and he's starting to warm up to people again; one day Mrs. Grainie bursts into the shop with the air of someone having just witnessed a miracle and informs everyone inside that she just passed Angus on the street and he _smiled at her._ And it's not long after that Muireen's returning from a trip to Lewis to run some errands for her parents and Angus actually stops her as she's leaving the boat, just to talk.

"How're you doing, Muireen?" he asks, eyes on her shoulder.

"Great, Angus, you?" she responds, wondering why he's avoiding eye contact.

"Y'know," he mumbles. "All right." He doesn't seem all right, but a passenger arrives and takes up his attention and she doesn't get to ask what's going on.

They have several such conversations over the next few months, stilted but polite, and Angus continues to give off the distinct impression that he's . . . embarrassed? Guilty? She doesn't understand why until one day that he actually invites her up to sit in the bridge on the way back to Hegg. "I've been meaning to say something to you," he says, his eyes fixed out over the water.

"Okay," she says when he doesn't go on.

"It's . . . I'm sorry."

She blinks. "Sorry? For what?"

He glances over at her and grins ruefully. "I've been a right idiot, haven't I? Just hiding away from the world."

Muireen considers carefully, making sure she won't say anything to make it worse. Then she says gently, "We all understand why you did, Angus."

"I know, but . . ." He sighs. "You're my friend too, Muireen. And I know you tried to be there for me, and I pushed you away every time. It wasn't fair for me to take my problems out on you."

They've reached the dock now, and Angus ducks out to tie the ferry off and help the few passengers out. Then he returns to where Muireen stands on the deck. "I know I've been a jerk," he tells her as the rays from the setting sun light up his face. "But is there any chance we can be friends again?"

A weight that she didn't realize she's been carrying is lifted from her shoulders: one of her best friends has come back to her. "Of course we can," she smiles before she has even realized she was going to answer. And it'll be fine, she's sure; she can be friends with him without falling in love with him. Anyway it'll be nice to have a friend in town who doesn't have teenaged children. And then something else slips from her mouth accidentally: "I've missed you."

The smile that crosses his face is bittersweet—affectionate but still tinged with guilt—and he steps forward and wraps his arms around her. He hasn't hugged her since her graduation, and she is shocked by how much she's missed it.

And after this reconciliation, she isn't ready to go home just yet. "This was your last trip of the day, yeah?" He nods, and she jerks her head toward town. "Buy me a drink at Gordon's to say sorry?" she suggests with a mischievous smile, and he grins.

An hour later, Angus is flat-out drunk and Muireen is not too far behind. The alcohol has loosened his tongue and made him forget his heartbreak, and he is gregarious and affable—well, compared to how he has been, he's gregarious and affable. Compared to other people, his mood might be more accurately described as "fairly pleasant." Callum and Aileen and the MacDiarmaids are all there too, having dinner or drinking, and Muireen catches them staring at Angus on more than one occasion. But who can blame them? It's the first time in six years he's looked happy in public, and she keeps staring at him as well.

"To Hegg," he toasts at one point. "The most beautiful place in the whole world, with the best people in the whole world."

Muireen lifts her glass, laughing, and then suddenly she realizes how broadly she's smiling and she forces herself to moderate her expression. For the last hour, Angus has been so much like his old self—handsome and laughing and passionate and idealistic and charming—that she almost let herself forget the last six years. And she can't do that. She can be his friend, but she can't love him again.

o.o.o

She loves him again. She doesn't know when it started or how or why, but she's sure of it, and the thought makes her want to bury her face in her pillow and scream.

It all starts on a Friday evening when she's twenty-seven. She and Angus have been friends again for three years now, and it's been lovely to have him back. They drink together, they eat together, they watch movies together, and in a way it's the closest they've ever been; it's the first time that it's been just the two of them. All their childhoods, it was the three of them.

(This is not to say, however, that Katie Nic Aoidh doesn't haunt their friendship like a spectre. The interesting part of this new relationship with Angus is that she can read him like a book these days. The sad part about reading Angus like a book is that she can see that he's still not over Katie. But she's not in love with him anymore, thank you very much, and the ghost of Katie Nic Aoidh is a mild inconvenience at best.)

And Muireen is completely convinced that's all there is and all there's going to be, and she maintains this belief quite firmly until that fateful Friday evening. They've been at Gordon's, drinking away happily, when Gordon's wife Elspeth speaks up from behind the bar. "I talked to Iseabail Nic Aoidh this morning," she says to Gordon, but with a glance at Angus and Muireen to let them know they're included in the conversation too. "She's had a letter from Katie. Sounds like she's doing very well—fancy job in the city, and she's dating some rich man. A doctor, I think. She sounds like she's been doing well since she left us."

Only Muireen is near enough to Angus to see how his hand tightens around his glass and eyes grow blank. And then he starts to drink in earnest. He likes a drink as much as the next person, but he's always been a man who knows his limits and stops himself before he gets out of hand. But not tonight. Tonight he's drinking like he wants to drain the place dry, and before too long, he's nearly comatose and Gordon is fixing Muireen with a significant look and nodding toward the door. She sighs and obediently pulls Angus's arm over her shoulder, hoists him out of his chair, and makes her way out of the building.

They make it to Angus's house, no thanks to him, and she leaves him swaying on his feet while she fishes through his pockets for his house keys, ignoring the fact that he's staring at her. And she has just found them when suddenly he leans down and kisses her.

It's sloppy and haphazard and not romantic at all, and yet it makes her catch her breath and starts her heart beating like crazy. He breaks off the kiss and she's standing there, floored, unsure what to do next, when suddenly he speaks. "I miss you, Katie."

Muireen stands very still for a moment. Then she opens the door and pushes Angus inside, closing and locking the door after him, and then she starts walking home, and she's made it halfway there when she collapses onto a bench along the path and begins to cry.

Angus doesn't mention the experience the next day; maybe he doesn't remember. But Muireen thinks it'll linger with her for a long time, because it triggered a terrible, awful realization: she still loves him. After all her efforts to get over him, she loves him still. And she knows this because that kiss, the one that was given to her but meant for Katie, broke her heart. And how can someone break your heart unless they hold a piece of it?

o.o.o

By the age of thirty-one, Muireen has reached a sort of truce with her heart. Angus will never love her, and she will never stop loving Angus. But that doesn't mean she has to be unhappy. She has his friendship, and it's the closest friendship she's ever had with anyone. She knows the village gossips are wondering when the two of them are going to get married; "After all," she overhears them say, "surely by this time Angus is over Katie." (News flash, she wants to tell them: he's not. He's just better at hiding it these days.) But she doesn't mind the gossips; they mean well. And she's happy enough without a husband. She has her work, she has her island, she has her friends around town and in other towns. She has hobbies that make her feel personally fulfilled, and she has a strange sort of calm resignation that comes from accepting the fact that she is unlikely to find love soon or ever. After all, where could she possibly meet anyone, living as she does on a tiny island where the only unmarried man near her age won't even take a second look at her and the next unmarried man near her age is seventeen years old?

So she's happy, in her way, and she's not much interested in changing that. But change it does, one warm summer evening when she looks out the window over the sink as she's washing up after dinner and sees the last person she ever expected to see in her garden: Iseabail Nic Aoidh. Fearing the worst, Muireen dries her hands and hurries out to the garden, her heart clenching with dread that something has happened to Katie. Why else would Iseabail come here? It's so difficult for her to navigate the roads of their little island these days, what with the wheelchair and with her illness sapping her strength day by day. There must be a reason she'd make the trip.

But nothing dreadful has happened to Katie; in fact it's something quite pleasant. She is engaged, and to the lead singer of a band, no less.

"That's lovely," she tells Iseabail sincerely, but the woman's shockingly light eyes still look concerned.

"Muireen," she says, reaching out to cover one of Muireen's hands with her own, "I know—I know you're friends with Angus. And I know Angus. People may say he's over my Katie, but I think you and I both know he's not."

Muireen stares at her a moment, and then nods sadly. "You're right. He's not."

"Could you tell him? I'd just hate for him to find out in a bad way. Tell him somewhere private, so he can react without the whole village watching him."

This sounds like the most unpleasant conversation she can imagine having. "Why don't you?" she suggests lamely. "You're her mother—"

"That's the problem," Iseabail says. "I don't think he wants to hear it from me. I don't think he wants to hear much of anything from me; he's barely said two words to me since Katie left. I can't blame him," she adds quickly. "I know my girl broke his heart."

Muireen screws up her face in a grimace, but then she sighs. Iseabail's right, this is the kindest option if she wants to spare Angus as much pain as possible. Better to hear it from a friend, in private, than from Mrs. Grainie in the middle of a Hegg Book Club meeting where the whole village will be watching his reaction, ready to tear his heartbreak apart like vultures fighting for their scrap of tasty gossip. "All right," she sighs. "I'll do it." And then she pauses, looking down at the face that at one point in her childhood was as familiar to her as her own mother's, and her expression softens. "Tell Katie congratulations for me, all right?"

Angus is easy to find; she's long had the ferry schedule memorized, and she knows he's just arrived back on Hegg after his final run of the day. Once the boat is taken care of for the night, she pulls him away to their favorite spot along the beach—at this time of the day it's the only place she can be sure they'll be alone.

He's curious about her secrecy but not anxious, she can tell, and she hates that she has to do this. He looks so serene and peaceful right now, and this will ruin it. He's been doing so much better lately; in fact, over the past two years, there have been gaps of time stretching into weeks where she thinks he's over Katie. And though the illusion is always spoiled by a comment or look that makes her realize that the feelings are still there, it's clear those feelings are tiny and hiding down deep. It's improvement, and that has made her so happy—not for her own sake, as she gave up on hoping years ago, but for his. Surely he'll be so much happier if he can let go of this and move on.

But as much as she hates to stir up those feelings, she's got to do it. So she takes a deep breath. "Angus," she says, "I had a visit from Iseabail Nic Aoidh today. She told me that Katie is engaged to be married."

It's like a candle has been blown out behind his eyes. He stares at her a long time, and then he gets up and leaves, leaving her alone on the steadily darkening beach. She doesn't see him for two days after that; she doesn't seek him out, and he doesn't seek her out. But on the third day, he asks her to go for a drink. Not Gordon's—too many people around, too many questions. Instead he buys a bottle of scotch and they go back to that same beach and sit on their usual rock. He's forgotten glasses, so they take turns drinking straight from the bottle. But they don't drink much; Angus confesses to her that he's been drunk for two days and he's tired of it.

That confession is the closest that they come to discussing Katie's engagement; Angus determinedly keeps the conversation on the weather and her sheep and Callum's new roof and the laird's latest silly plan to bring tourism to Hegg, and Muireen is happy to let him direct the conversation. As the sun slips below the horizon, they reach one of those lulls that good friends often find themselves in—not an uncomfortable silence, but one that speaks to how comfortable they are with each other, that they can sit in silence and not need to fill it. Muireen is looking out over the ocean when she feels Angus's gaze on her face. And when she looks back at him, to her immense surprise, he kisses her.

It's much better than that drunken kiss four years ago, but she's not any happier about this one. "Angus," she scolds, pulling away from him, "stop it."

He blinks a few times, clearly surprised. "Why? I mean . . . I kind of thought you . . . were interested."

Goodness gracious, Angus knows how she feels about him? Has he known this whole time? How humiliating. "That's not the problem," she says, fighting to keep her face and voice steady. "The problem is, you've been drinking and you're upset over Katie. Which means that kiss was very unfair to me. You don't get to kiss me when you miss Katie. I have feelings too."

He is silent for a while; she has almost gotten bored enough to tell him she's going home when he speaks again. "Then how about I kiss you for the sake of kissing you?"

She almost chokes on her drink. "Come again?"

"Yeah, I'm upset over Katie. But I've spent . . . thirteen years pining over someone who probably hasn't thought of me once since she left. I've wasted almost half my life on her, and I'm still nowhere near the only thing I've ever wanted: to raise a family on Hegg." His expression is so earnest that it makes her a little sad. "You're right, part of me still loves Katie. But you're my best friend—you're my only friend—and here we both are, the only single people left on Hegg. Besides the laird. Maybe we should . . . give it a try."

It's the least romantic thing she's ever heard. Give it a try, because they've both given up on ever finding love anywhere else? But on the other hand, he's got a point. The way things are going right now, she will never meet anyone unless she leaves Hegg, and she doesn't want to do that. Angus may be her only chance. And then there's the fact that she loves him; those feelings could make it worse, if they give this a try and it ends badly, but on the other hand . . . what if it works? What if she can make him forget Katie?

"That's mad, you know that, right?"

He nods, and the expression on his face is somewhere between embarrassed and uncertain. Apparently he really does realize how crazy an idea this is. She hesitates. "What would 'giving it a try' entail?"

He shrugs. "We could . . . date. See what happens. This isn't out of nowhere, Muireen; I've been thinking about it for a while. I think it could work."

There's a long silence while she thinks—long enough that Angus starts to look uncomfortable. And then she nods. "Okay, let's give it a try."

He doesn't look happy, exactly, but he does look relieved. And then, awkwardly, he kisses her again. There's something quite lovely about a kiss from Angus that she doesn't feel the need to immediately stop. So maybe this isn't the worst idea in the world.

o.o.o

Dating Angus is an odd experience, to say the least. Neither of them is really sure how to move forward in a relationship designed solely to test out if two friends think they could stand settling down together. At first it looks a lot like their friendship, only he pays for her meals more often and sometimes he shows up at her house with flowers. But they keep it a secret from the rest of the village, and he doesn't kiss her again.

But then, one day about a month after they've started this grand experiment, they're watching a film at Muireen's house, and for once her parents and her brother aren't home. It's been a long day, and she finds herself, quite without meaning to, cuddling closer to his side and laying her head on his shoulder. He hesitates for a long moment, and then he takes her hand in his. It's quite nice, and apparently he feels the same way because after that he holds her hand more often; he even does it in town, and the village gossips are triumphant that they were right about the two of them dating.

He eventually kisses her again, and it's quite pleasant: she's undeniably attracted to him, and he's undeniably good at it. But she doesn't let herself get carried away. She may be foolish, letting him play with her heart this way, but she's not stupid: she knows perfectly well from his behavior, and even from the way he kisses her, that the kiss does not mean he desires her now.

"Was that . . . all right?" he asks timidly after kissing her.

And she's sick of pretending. "It would have been nicer if you'd meant it," she says resignedly. He gives her a sheepish smile.

But there are moments of their relationship that are wonderful, moments when she really thinks that he's coming to care for her as more than just "the only single girl on the island." For example, there's the time she's ill and he comes by to bring her a balloon and a tureen of soup. (Useless; she still lives with her parents and her mum's keeping her supplied with much better soup than Angus knows how to make. But it's an incredibly sweet gesture.)

"You didn't have to bring this," she smiles at him.

"I wanted to," he says. "Goodness knows you've done this often enough for me. And I was worried about you." And he actually sits by her bedside and holds her hand until she falls asleep.

Or there's the time that he comes back from Barra with a present for her: a necklace made of some kind of dark silver stone or metal, each piece polished to a dull shine, all irregularly shaped so they cluster together in a random but pleasing way. The color of the stones is the same dark gray of the stones on the shores of Hegg, and in fact the overall impression the necklace gives is a cluster of stones at the Hebridean seaside where they often go together. She wonders if he saw it too, when he decided to buy it.

"What's this about?" she asks.

"I saw it in a shop on Barra," he shrugs as he lifts the necklace from the box and moves around behind her to fasten it on. "And it reminded me so much of you that I decided I had to buy it."

She treasures that necklace, and she loves the way he smiles when he sees her wearing it.

The experience she treasures most, though, is the day they spend climbing the hills of Hegg with a packed lunch and a blanket. And after they've eaten their lunch on a beautiful hillside, they lay back on the blanket in the warm sunshine and watch the clouds racing across the sky. The weather is beautiful, the day is quiet, and Muireen hasn't felt so relaxed and happy in a long time.

"Muireen?" Angus says suddenly from beside her. "I want you to know something. I know this whole thing has been . . . odd. But I want you to know that I'm happy right now. Whatever we are, whatever we aren't, I'm just . . . really happy."

And for once Muireen doesn't worry about what he really means and how Katie ties in and does letting herself believe him put her at risk for more heartbreak. Today she just reaches out for his hand and squeezes. He squeezes back. "So am I," she says.

o.o.o

The nature of their relationship means she's never sure if he's about to break up with her or marry her, so maybe that's why his proposal shocks her as much as it does.

"Marry you?" she repeats, flabbergasted.

"Well, yeah," he says. "That's what this has all been about, right?"

"Yes, but . . . I just didn't realize we were there yet." But maybe she did, that's the thing. Now that she thinks back on it, she can't deny that things have been different between them lately—easier, more natural. For the past month he's been kissing her like he actually wants to, rather than like it's a duty to fulfill.

"Look," he says, taking her hand in his, "you're the most important person in my life. I love being with you. And I think we'd be really happy together."

It is very conspicuously not a declaration of love. But then, it is more than she ever expected to get from Angus. Part of her wants to say no, just to call his bluff—because it must be a bluff, right? But then he's never looked at her so earnestly, and he's never told her how much he likes her.

She might come to regret this very quickly, but she squeezes his hand. "All right."

o.o.o

Everyone is thrilled, and no one is surprised, to hear about their engagement. Her family is ecstatic, and his family is ecstatic, and the members of the Hegg book club are all absurdly pleased with themselves, "because we've all seen it coming for years," according to Mrs. Grainie.

No one is more excited than Angus's mother Margaret. "I'd nearly given up hope," she tells Muireen as she measures her for the wedding dress she plans to sew. "I thought he'd wallow in his grief forever. I didn't think I'd ever get to plan a wedding. And now—" she pats Muireen's cheek— "he's found the sweetest girl on the island."

Muireen is just about the only girl on the island, but still, it's a nice thing for her future mother-in-law to say.

And she's only too thrilled to have Margaret's help planning the wedding; her own mother is handling the food, as she's a wonderful cook, but she's quite terrible with crafting and sewing and decorating. And Muireen has little to contribute; not since she was a little girl has she spent any time planning her future wedding, because she was fairly sure that day would never come and it was better not to hope and be disappointed.

Now that she has a wedding to plan for, though, Muireen finds herself throwing herself into the task enthusiastically. As the two months leading up to the wedding tick by, she grows daily more exciting about the prospect, about the dress, about the food, about the little cottage Angus has gotten for them. And for the first time in her life, she lets herself get swept up in the prospect of being married. This certainly isn't how she thought this would happen, but one way or another, she is going to be Mrs. Angus Ross.

This certainly doesn't mean that their engagement is all sunshine and rainbows, though. Angus goes in phases; for a few days he'll be excited about the wedding, and then for a day he'll be hesitant. But then something will change his mind—it always does—and he'll go back to being excited. Part of her says this is something to be concerned about and she should talk to him to see if he's really still interested in going through with this, but another much bigger part points out that cold feet is normal for a wedding, and to call off the wedding for something that commonplace would be silly.

But on the night before the wedding, she can't take it anymore. They've been sitting in their favorite spot on the beach, talking idly about nothing and everything, their hands intertwined, and suddenly it frightens Muireen to think of marrying a man who doesn't love her.

"Those clouds look a bit threatening," Angus is saying, looking out over the water. "I hope it doesn't rain on our wedding day."

Muireen opens her mouth to reply that Margaret would be heartbroken if her decorations were ruined by bad weather, and instead finds herself blurting out, "Do you really want to marry me?"

Angus blinks, surprised, but then his expression turns thoughtful. "I've been blowing a bit hot and cold these last few months, haven't I?" He sounds apologetic.

"A bit," Muireen admits.

Angus hesitates, looking down at their entwined hands, and then looks her squarely in the face. "I'm frightened," he admits. "Getting married is a big step under any circumstances, and you and me, we've taken sort of a roundabout way to get here. So yeah, sometimes I wonder if we're making the right choice."

She swallows hard.

"But here's the thing, Muireen," he says, and he raises one hand to cup her jaw, "I always decide that we are. No matter what happens, I'm happy I'm marrying you. Don't ever forget that." And then he kisses her like he means it, like he's never meant anything so much.

Muireen is breathless by the time it ends. "All right," she agrees, looking up at his smiling face. "I'll remember."

o.o.o

It does rain off and on on their wedding day, but everyone's predicting it'll clear out by the afternoon. Muireen sees Angus once in the morning, before either of them has started to get ready, when she goes over to his house to discuss a few last minute things with Margaret. The clear certainty from last night has vanished from his face, leaving him looking severe and a bit drawn, but he manages a smile when he sees her and she reminds herself of his words from last night: I'm happy I'm marrying you. Don't ever forget that. So she smiles back and tells herself he'll feel better once the actual wedding is over.

Back at her house, she slips into her dress and her mother does her hair, and then they travel together to the church where Angus and their guests are waiting. All the way there, she repeats to herself that he's happy he's marrying her. He knows they're making the right choice. And as insane as it all is, in a few minutes she will be Mrs. Angus Ross. The thought buoys her until she's almost giddy, practically giggling as she talks to her parents, and they laugh back and all things considered she's never felt as certain about marrying Angus as she does at this very moment.

And then she walks into the church and sees the very last person she ever wanted to see on her wedding day: Katie Nic Aoidh.

It's nightmarish and ridiculous, cartoonishly grotesque—she couldn't have planned a worse turn of events if she'd tried. But then she reminds herself: Katie is engaged to another man. Katie has been off the island for nearly fourteen years. Angus hasn't mentioned Katie by name in over a year. Angus proposed to Muireen. Angus is happy he's marrying her, and she's not meant to ever forget that. So she holds her head up high and tries to make a joke of it. "You're too late, Katie," she says, and it's half for the benefits of fellow islanders listening in and half to boost her own confidence. "He's mine now."

Katie looks embarrassed and apologetic and scurries into her seat, and Muireen walks down the aisle, posture stiff and heart pounding. She's so confused and surprised and embarrassed that she doesn't even properly look at Angus until she gets to the front of the church, and what she sees makes her heart sink a little. Angus looks like he's seen a ghost: face pale, eyes wide and staring, mouth moving uselessly and unable to form words. She grips her bouquet tighter. "Angus?" she asks quietly as the vicar searches for the right page in his Bible.

Angus looks at her, and then out at their assembled family and friends, and then up at the vicar. He takes a deep breath, and when he looks back at Muireen, his expression is determined. "It's fine," he says. "This doesn't change anything."

She doesn't believe him at first, but he nods at the vicar to begin and it's too late to speak. And his face is so serene, so implacable, that she starts to think he meant it. Maybe he's really not bothered by Katie being here.

Of course that doesn't explain the tightness of his jaw, the way he keeps clenching into a fist the hand that's out of sight from the people down in the pews. But no matter what he's feeling, he's clearly not going anywhere. Even with Katie Nic Aoidh here, back in his life, he is saying his vows to Muireen. It looks like he really has finally chosen his current fiancee over the girl who abandoned him fourteen years ago. And Muireen finds herself smiling as she speaks her own vows.

But deep in her heart, she's hoping that they haven't just made the biggest mistake of their lives.

o.o.o


End file.
